|
The indigenous native
peoples who would later become the Confederated Tribes of the Colville
Reservation were not forgotten. In an December 22, 1855 letter to the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Governor Stevens told of meeting with
some Indians, as he had promised during the Yakama Treaty negotiations,
but "they did not sign a treaty although they pledged to take no
part in the Yakama War which broke out that year."
The Yakama War lasted
until 1859 and involved tribes located in today’s southern Washington
State and Oregon. History indicates that Indian people and gold miners
were involved in altercations in the Wenatchee and Okanogan valleys.
|
Fish Traps on Okanokan River |
Right side of
Kettle Falls |
From 1859
until 1865, the federal government allowed the Indians of North Central
Washington State to live without a treaty or an "Indian Agent"
to oversee them. That changed in 1865 when George Paige was sent to
the area as the first Indian Agent. He traveled and visited tribes through
1868 and made periodic reports to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
Superintendent
McKenny, who oversaw the entire Washington Territory, commented on Paige’s
May 9, 1867 written report as follows: "From this report, the necessity
of trading with these Indians can scarcely fail to be obvious. They
now occupy the best agricultural lands in the whole country and they
claim an undisputed right to these lands. White squatters are constantly
making claims in their territory and not infrequently invading the actual
improvements of the Indians. The state of things cannot but prove disastrous
to the peace of the country unless forestalled by a treaty fixing the
rights of the Indians and limiting the aggressions of the white man.
The fact that a portion of the Indians refused all gratuitous presents
shows a determination to hold possession of the country here until the
government makes satisfactory overtures to open the way of actual purchase."
|
|
At its
inception by a President Grant’s Executive Order on April 9, 1872,
the Colville Indian Reservation was in a different location from today’s
reservation. The first reservation covered several million acres of
diverse properties including rivers, streams, timbered forests, grass
lands, minerals, plants and animals.
The
aboriginal tribes of the Methow, Okanagan, San Poil, Lakes, Colvilles,
Kalispels, Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, and other scattered tribes who
were not parties to any treaty were confined to the original reservation.
Less than
a month later, another Presidential Executive Order issued on July 2,
1872 moved the Colville Indian Reservation to its present location on
the west side of the mighty Columbia River and diminished its size to
less than three million acres or 2,825,000 acres. The areas between
the Okanogan River and the crest of the Cascade Mountain Range in the
Methow Valley and between the Columbia and Pend d’Orielle Rivers
and the Colville Valley were excluded from the second and final reservation.
|
Mother of Yellow
Wolf |
